About 15 million tourists visited Brazil’s federal environmental reserves in 2019, an increase of 300% over the last 13 years. If, on the one hand, this increase reflects a greater interest by Brazilians in getting to know the country’s fauna and flora, on the other, only 22 of the 137 conservation units (UC) whose tourism is monitored by the federal government concentrate 92% of these visitors.
Problems with regularization, public data, infrastructure, lack of personnel and even access prevent the sector from taking off. In other words, ecological tourism, seen as an alternative for economic and sustainable development, is still in its infancy in Brazil, although the country has enormous potential to be explored in the segment.
This is the diagnosis of a study by Fundação Grupo Boticário to which BBC News Brasil had access. The report discusses the current scenario and the tourist potential of the country’s nature conservation reserves.
Brazil has 2,446 public conservation units registered with the Ministry of the Environment — they are administered by the federal government, but also by states and municipalities.
